When a client portal pays for itself
A portal is not a goal. It only pays off once your clients ask you the same question structurally. How to work out whether that is you.
“We want a client portal” is usually not a wish but a symptom. Too much time goes into answering questions your client could look up themselves. The question is whether that is enough time to build software for.
The arithmetic
Add up how many times a week someone comes to you with the same question: where is my order, what is the status of my file, could you send that invoice again. Multiply by the time it takes, including the interruption. Five of those a day at ten minutes each is over four hours a week, or half an FTE across a year.
If you are well under that, a portal is an expensive answer to a small annoyance. If you are over it, it pays for itself in the first year and you end up with a client who does not have to call to know where they stand.
What really has to be in it
- The status of the thing your client is waiting for, in plain language
- Documents they would otherwise request by email
- A history of what happened and when
- A way to send something in without it disappearing into a mailbox
What does not have to be in it
A chat function nobody uses. A dashboard with charts your client has no use for. Settings two people will ever touch. Every screen you build is a screen you maintain, and most portals get ignored because there is too much in them, not too little.
The trap: your own system is the source
A portal is almost never a standalone application. It shows what is in your bookkeeping, your planning or your stock system. If that data is messy, the portal makes it painfully visible, because suddenly your client is looking too. Count on part of the budget going to cleaning up and opening up that source.
A portal does not make your process better. It makes it visible, and that forces you to make it better.
Starting small genuinely works here
Build only the screen that answers that one question first. Put it live, see whether your clients use it and whether the number of phone calls drops. That is a matter of weeks and it tells you more than six months of wish lists.